Motivational speaker and self-help author Anthony “Tony” Robbins of California is said to be behind a trust that paid a recorded $24.75 million for a new ocean-to-lake house at 750 S. Ocean Blvd., about a quarter-mile south of The Ritz-Carlton in Manalapan.

The sale recorded Monday marks the highest price paid for a house in the seaside town since October 2011, when 820 S. Ocean Blvd. changed hands for a recorded $25.5 million. This week’s sale and the 2011 deal also rank as two highest-dollar Manalapan transactions within at least 10 years, according to property records and sources knowledgeable with the local housing market.

Agent Jim McCann of the Corcoran Group had last listed the six-bedroom, Georgian-style estate home at No. 750 for $28.75 million and offered it partially furnished, according to his sales listing in the Palm Beach Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service.

Standing on a 2-acre lot with 171 feet of water frontage, the house has a little more than 16,000 square feet of living space, inside and about.

The Del Gato Trust bought the property, according to the deed dated last Thursday and recorded four days later by the Palm Beach County Clerk’s office.

Built without a buyer

The two-story house was sold by 750 South Ocean LLC, a Florida limited liability company, according to the deed. Developer Pat Carney and high-end builder Mark Pulte of Mark Timothy Luxury Homes finished the “spec” house — which is built without a buyer for sale on the open market — last year and are building another next door, according to town records. Architect Benjamin Schreier of Affiniti Architects designed both houses.

Broker Lawrence A. Moens of Lawrence A. Moens Associates in Palm Beach said Monday that he represented the home’s buyer in conjunction with another agency. The Regional Multiple Listing Service lists that agency as Boca Executive Realty, which was represented in the transaction by agent Mitch Frank of the firm’s Juno Beach office.

Moens declined to comment about the sale and his client. McCann could not be reached for comment.

Frank would not discuss specific details or identify his clients by name. But he described them as a “prominent California couple” who were attracted by the home’s waterfront location near Palm Beach, the quality of the construction, and the fine interior and exterior finishes.

Over the past several weeks, multiple real estate sources have said privately that Robbins and his family had been house-hunting in and around Palm Beach, and had bought the property. None would comment publicly, however.

Robbins could not be reached for comment, and a spokeswoman for his company did not immediately return a phone call Tuesday.

Robbins is a motivational speaker, “life coach,” business consultant and author of self-help books that include Awaken the Giant Within and Unlimited Power: The New Science of Personal Achievement. His company, Robbins Research International Inc., is based in San Diego. Robbins is married to Sage “Bonnie Pearl” Robbins and has four children, according to the biography on his company’s website.

The deed identified Los Angeles attorneys William M. Weintraub and Frederick W. Gartside as co-trustees of the trust that bought the house. The trust’s address is listed as an office in a building at 277 Royal Poinciana Way. Reached through his California office Monday, Weintraub declined to comment.

The house features a first-floor oceanfront master bedroom, a pair of two-car garages, an infinity-edge pool, a newly built seawall, a lakeside dock and a wine cellar among its amenities.

California connections

Developer Frank McKinney’s Venture Capital International sold the lot, which then measured 2.37 acres, to Carney’s development company in January 2011 for $7.27 million. A month later, McKinney sold the 1.6-acre lot next door at No. 800 to the same company for a little less than $5.46 million. The size of both lots was then reconfigured, according to property records.

McKinney had once envisioned building a massive spec home that would occupy the two lots and another immediately to the north. But the recession derailed those plans, he said Tuesday, and the properties ended up being sold separately.

McKinney said this week’s sale was encouraging for the local high-end housing market.

“It’s a wonderful thing to see after three or four years of declining values,” he said.

McKinney said he had no comment about who bought the house. But he did say he has noted a growing trend among Californians and residents of other states with higher taxes than Florida’s who are looking to buy property here. South Florida’s beaches, he added, are better in terms of the quality of the sand and warmer water temperatures than those in high-end Southern California communities such as Bel Air or Malibu.

“That California migration is quite a plus for us in South Florida. People get a lot of bang for their buck here,” McKinney said. “Florida is still on sale.”

He added that the state enjoyed a similar influx when the high-tech bubble of the late 1990s and early 2000s drove up California land values, encouraging many residents there to shop elsewhere for homes.

McCann acted for the buyer in the 2011 purchase of the lots opposite agents David Reback and Gino Cicerchia of Engel & Voelkers, which has since changed its name to Reback Realty.